Emperor Kōtoku sends an embassy to the court of the Tang Dynasty in China.

Japanese ambassadors, priests and students sail for the capital Chang'an, but some of the ships are lost en route.

Prince Naka-no-Ōe changes his residence to Asuka with other imperial family members and ministers.

Only emperor Kōtoku stays in the Naniwa Palace.

The Muslim Arab armies seize the Eastern Roman vassal principality of Armenia, in its place establishing the Ostikanate of Armenia.

Emperor Constans II voluntarily surrenders Armenia to the Arabs following a truce with Muawiyah, governor of Syria.

He grants the Armenians virtual autonomy and appoints the nakharar Theodor Rshtuni as ruler of Armenia.

The Lombards, one of the Germanic tribes that formed the Suebi, had migrated in 568 into Italy, which had been left almost defenseless after the Empire's armies had overthrown the Ostrogothic kingdom there.

By the time of Agilulf (reigned 590-615), the Lombards were well established in the Italian peninsula with a capital in the north at Pavia and strong duchies in Spoleto, Tuscany, and Beneventum.

Pavia, where the royal palace is located, has become the center of administrative organization.

King Rothari had died in 652 after a sixteen-year reign and had been succeeded by his son Rodoald as king of the Lombards.

Rodoald, said to be lecherous, is assassinated after a reign of just six months in 653 by the husband of one of his lovers.

Paul the Deacon writes that Rodoald "had reigned five years and seven days," although historians note that this length of reign is suspect.

Aripert, a rival claimant, is elected with the support of the Catholic Church, which opposes the Arian monarchy.

Aripert is the first Roman Catholic king of the Lombards.

Penda secures dominance over the area of Middle Anglia, which had been incorporated into the wider kingdom of Mercia, apparently well before the reign of Penda, who evidently feels safe enough to locate his base in the territory of the Middle Angles, over whom he places his eldest son, Peada, as sub-king.

Bede specifies the Middle Angles as the target of a four-man Christian mission accepted by Peada, who converts to Christianity, partly in order to wed Alchflaed, the daughter of King Oswiu of Northumbria.

This mission arrives in 653 and includes St Cedd.

Peada's conversion and acceptance of baptism in Northumbria by Bishop Finan of Lindisfarne possibly indicates a continuing sense of disunity or local particularism within Mercia.

It is unlikely that Peada could have pursued so different a course from his father, at the strategic and political center of the Mercian kingdom, without local support among the Middle Angles.

Œthelwald had become king of Deira in 651 after Oswine of Deira was killed by Oswiu of Bernicia; it is uncertain whether Oswiu (who was Œthelwald's uncle) installed him as king or whether Œthelwald took the kingship in opposition to Oswiu.

Œthelwald, a pious Christian, rejects Oswiu's overlordship and turns instead to the pagan Penda, who mounts another attack on Bernicia.

King Sigeberht I of Essex dies after a thirty-six-year reign and is succeeded by his relative Sigeberht II.

Sigeberht finds a powerful northern "friend" (amicus) and ally in King Oswiu of Bernicia, who persuades him to adopt Christianity as part of a mobilization against Penda.

Bede's statement that Sigeberht regularly visited the Bernician court and the general nature of Oswiu's influence on the course of Sigeberht's career suggest that the balance of power was in Oswiu's favor.

Oswiu may have intended the alliance to help him offer effective resistance against King Penda of Mercia, as is also suggested by his alliance with Penda's son Peada, king of the Middle Angles.

The Midlands region of the present county of Leicestershire in 653 becomes part of the Kingdom of Mercia.

Pope Martin I is arrested in the Lateran Palace in Rome on June 17, 653, along with Maximus the Confessor on orders of emperor Constans II and taken to imprisonment in Constantinople.